Korn/Ferry International was founded by Lester B. Korn and Richard M. Ferry in Los Angeles.

Korn/Ferry International becomes the first major U.S. executive search firm to operate in the Asia Pacific region by opening an office in Tokyo. The firm also publishes its first annual Board of Directors study.

Our second Asia Pacific office opens in Singapore.

Recognizing the importance of the Greater China Region (GCR), we open our Hong Kong office. We also expand our ASEAN operations by starting the Kuala Lumpur business the same year. Globally, this is the first year that the Firm is ranked the world's largest search firm by Fortune magazine.

Korn/Ferry's Australasian operations open in Sydney, Australia.

Melbourne becomes our second office in Australia.

The third ASEAN-based office opens in Bangkok.

Lester Korn is appointed U.S. Ambassador to the Economic & Social Council of the United Nations.

Our first office in India in Bombay (now Mumbai) opens.

We expand our Greater China footprint by introducing executive search in Beijing.

Jakarta becomes our fourth ASEAN office, coinciding with the formation of a new specialty practice addressing the talent needs of Asian Family Groups that traditionally have operated in this sub-region. We also open our Wellington office in New Zealand, further widening the Australasian footprint.

As part of our emerging markets strategy, we open second offices in both China and India, in Shanghai and New Delhi, respectively.

A new Seoul office rounds out our North Asia presence. Futurestep, an online recruitment service, launches in California.

In addition to acquiring Amrop International and opening an office in Brisbane to bolster our Australasian network, we introduced Futurestep–our outsourced recruiting subsidiary–in Australia in September.

Globally, the Firm goes public.

A second Korn/Ferry office opens in New Zealand in Auckland, while Futurestep expands not only to New Zealand, but also Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore and Tokyo.

Korn/Ferry is recognized as the leading executive search firm in Asia by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU).

The Firm is awarded sino-foreign search joint venture by Beijing Personnel Bureau followed by another one by the Shanghai Personnel Bureau in 2003.

Futurestep expands its operations into Shanghai in October, while we embark a study of Chinese leadership styles with Peking University.

Korn/Ferry relocates our Asia Pacific strategic center of operations to Shanghai to reflect the increasing importance of China to our clients worldwide. Later that year, Futurestep introduces its services in New Delhi, India.

In concert with the Economist Intelligence Unit, Korn/Ferry conducts a survey of over 300 C-level executives worldwide to gauge perceptions of Asia's growing influence in the global operating environment entitled "The Dream Team: Delivering Leadership in Asia."

As part of our regional ‘Delivering Leadership’ campaign, we expand our research projects to include partnerships with ADVANCE (Global Australian Professionals), the Faldo Series Asia, the International Market Assessment group in India, Lexis-Nexis and others to help drive conversations that will help shape the future of Asia’s business landscape.

We also launch our third Indian office–in Bangalore–and a fourth Greater China office in Guangzhou while Futurestep further expands its Indian operations into Mumbai in June.

Korn/Ferry becomes one of the world’s largest talent management firms to be awarded Wholly Foreign Owned Entity (WFOE) status for its operations in Guangzhou and Shanghai.

Continuing our pioneering history in China, Korn/Ferry opens its fifth office in Greater China in Taipei, Taiwan. The firm also launches www.kornferry.cn and www.kornferry.jp, dedicated local-language Web sites for China and Japan.